


Drowning in Roses

by Artemis1000



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Dark, Drabble Sequence, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 01:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16944153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: The taste of roses at the back of his throat sneaks up on Gavin so slowly that it slips into his reality without him being consciously aware of it.He could never fail to be aware of Connor.Connor, who has a bright smile and kind words for everyone, and burns Gavin with the painstaking politeness of his aloof distance.





	Drowning in Roses

**Author's Note:**

> I love this ship and I am sorry. One day I will write an actual happy shippy fic for them. That day is not today.
> 
> Today, you get the gruesome beauty of flowers.

The taste of roses at the back of his throat sneaks up on Gavin so slowly that it slips into his reality without him being consciously aware of it.

He could never fail to be aware of Connor.

Connor, who has a bright smile and kind words for everyone, and burns Gavin with the painstaking politeness of his aloof distance.

Connor, who has given him no reason to feel differently, except he grows more alive with every day and makes Gavin feel the tin man in comparison.

When he watches him, he feels sick to the stomach – loathing, he figures.

 

 

Connor shines bright as he jokes with Anderson and Chris.

Gavin pours away his coffee because some asshole poured perfumed flowery crap into it.

Connor’s laughter follows him into the break room, he can’t tune it out. He has tried.

He brews a fresh pot of coffee. It tastes even worse. He pours it down the drain and calls it a lost cause.

When he returns to his desk, Connor is looking his way. His eyes seem to halt on him. Gavin’s breath catches. Connor continues his survey of the bullpen like he never took notice of Gavin at all.

 

 

Caught in fever dreams after being shot, he dreams of Connor.

In his dreams, Connor sees him.

He is awakened by a feeling like choking but the painkillers pull him back under as soon as he can breathe again.

Four days later, in his right mind once more, he finds withered rose petals crinkled underneath his pillow.

He brushes them to the floor and grumbles about fuckers bringing him flowers: What if he’s allergic, huh, what if?!

Gavin is not unaware of the possibility. He simply refuses to consider it.

Albeit the fever is broken, the dreams of Connor remain.

 

 

Rose petals spill out of his mouth; blood-red, soft and unblemished though he has been vomiting them up like something that ought be ugly.

He kneels on the grimy floor of the rearmost stall in the men’s room at work and watches as the toilet bowl fills up with rose petals - and he knows.

He knows it is Connor.

He knows he needs to tell him.

He knows he won’t.

He picks himself up from the floor and flushes until there is no more red in the bowl.

The taste of roses lingers at the back of his throat.

 

 

He watches Connor refuse to watch him.

He still won’t tell, he just likes to torture himself with things he can’t have.

Pride stills him but it goes beyond that.

The only good telling Connor would bring would be him bringing Gavin relief – and he is cruel but even he isn’t quite that cruel. Connor might try to love him back, out of a misplaced sense of duty or out of misplaced guilt for his own crimes or most likely, simply out of misplaced pity.

Gavin would rather choke on roses.

Besides, Gavin has long since decided Connor would fail.

 

 

There is no fucking way Gavin is going to tell him.

He just likes to wonder sometimes.

_If we had met in a different life._

_If you were human._

_Or I were not._

It’s stupid and he has no time left for stupid thoughts. He has no time left at all.

These times he is wondering about stupid things? That’s mostly when he’s laying awake late at night, glaring into the dark and trying to distract himself from how much more he has to struggle with every breath.

He had always known an android would be the death of him.

 

 

 _They cut the love out of you_ the singer on the radio croons.

Connor changes the channel.

Gavin stifles a sigh of relief and considers himself lucky for not spilling petals all over the dashboard like in a cheesy chick flick reveal.

“Would you?” Connor asks into the tense-to-hostile silence and it takes Gavin at least five seconds longer than is excusable to figure out what he’s talking about.

“None of your fucking business, plastic.”

Connor doesn’t respond.

“Can androids catch it?”

He hesitates. “Yes,” he says mournfully.

Gavin wants to punch him for it. He doesn’t; it’s too late.

 

 

Gavin doesn’t want to die.

The realization hits him with the force of a sledgehammer at 3:46 a.m. while he is slumped over his toilet bowl like it’s the morning of his very first hangover all over again.

He had taken for granted that it would kill him.

But it doesn’t have to, does it?

They can cut the love out of you.

He had never earnestly considered it.

If there’s one trait Gavin Reed characterizes himself by even more than by his ambition, it’s his emotionality.

For better or worse, he feels strongly.

But he doesn’t want to die.

 

 

They cannot, actually, cut the love out of you. Not the love for one person, not the sickness that twists love into something that kills you.

What they can do is deaden you so you become altogether incapable of feeling love.

The sickness remains, it is incurable even in the age of plastic people come alive, but it can be forced into hibernation with nothing left to trigger it.

The doctor’s voice is patient and kind as he explains the procedure. He is careful to show no pity, to speak only of the remedy and not of the price paid.

 

 

The nurses are telling him to be calm. That all will be well. Gavin would rather be angry on the last day his feelings are his own.

“Are you sure?” the doctor asks. Gavin knows he means _are you sure your love can’t be returned_?

“I am,” Gavin says. Out of all possible choices, telling Connor is the only one that was never on the table.

Going under feels like drowning in roses.

After the surgery, he will be the machine and Connor the man.

 _The romantic disease,_ they call it. Gavin prefers to call it by its name: Death.


End file.
